94-100, 114-124, 130 Kent Street, Church of the Ascension, St. Elias Greek Rite Catholic Church

builder: James R. Sparrow, Jr., 1863-64
builder: James R. Sparrow, Sr., 1867-68
builder: Neziah Bliss, 1858-59
121-129 Kent Street Henry Dudley, 1865-66
149 Kent Street church: William B. Ditmars, 1869-70; school: W. Wheeler Smith, 1879

Another of the neighborhood’s most notable blocks, this street features rowhouses in a variety of styles, including Italianate and French Second Empire. Highlights include the Italianate brick houses at numbers 94-100, a row of four with round-arch entrances and mansard roofs; numbers 114-124, a row of six dwellings with cast-iron lintels and sheet metal cornices; and number 130, with an elaborate cornice and portico with fluted Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and a round-arch entrance. Church of the Ascension, a granite structure with brownstone trim, evokes a small country church. Its architect was a famous proponent of the Gothic Revival style in America, of which this church is an early example. St. Elias Greek Rite Catholic Church, formerly the Reformed Dutch Church of Greenpoint, combines elements of the Romanesque Revival and Victorian Gothic styles, both popular in the post-Civil War period. Its brick and stone façades have round-arch openings, polychromatic ornament and a columned portico entrance. Its polygonal Sunday school building mimics a medieval Italian baptistery, but another Victorian touch can be found in the handsome wooden porch on its east end. Each site is located within the Greenpoint Historic District, and the State and National Register Historic District boundaries.

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